Abstract

Our research programme, a part of which is presented in this paper, looked at four year old children’s ability to use manipulatives in the construction of cube models. We looked at how pre-school children managed the creation of cube nets as a mathematical problem and whether graphical representations of solutions could become a useful tool in a child’s quest for solving the nets of a cube mathematical problem. We followed the work of twenty four-year old children who were asked to solve a cube creation geometry mathematical problem. In order for the problem to be successfully solved, graphical representations of solutions had to be developed. The data analysis showed that, during the course of the programme, children developed the ability to use manipulatives in order to solve the mathematical problem. The development of strategies for graphically representing the solutions also seemed to have played an important role in solving the specific mathematical problem.